Roger elkin Poems

</>Acts of Worship: Keeping Warm

i.m. Aggie Smith
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</>Art Lesson: Perspectives

Close up your eyes, clear out your mind,
think of nothing but blank space…
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Bump, and in he comes, my son, my six-year-old lump
of boydom, trundling through the door, his arms
a heaving sheaf of blue, so full the colour hides his eyes.
“Bluebells, Mum, ” and the pulled stems bundle in my hands.
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Six weeks old were the six stirks
when they came to where the sky drags
its blueness from dregs of speedwell and harebell,
and its sunsets from the falcon’s hunger.
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This week it’s digging ditches, and I’ve been assigned to Jack.
He doesn’t banter much – has got his fags so rarely mithers
Me but stands there, grins and smokes, or takes a casual hack
At last year’s rioting weed, while I nick the ground, cutting back
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Arkwright might well be surprised to learn his
Cradle of Industrial Revolution that
Rocked him to fame (while children tumbled,
Over-tired, to early graves, and exhausted
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For Bruno, for Ron

Zed was Zinaida, half-blood-bonded, put in charge
of schooling while the iron-master managed
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Follow your eye through an autumn morning.
Notice mists lingering round fingers of fir, silver wisps
Caught on auburn leaves. Think this garden is September-sad,
Suddenly old with threads of web, the hedge beginning to thin
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I
Lulled by stream’s crystal divinity
of seepage beneath the moor’s rim,
I drank myself blind on water
and the sounds of water, the chirrings
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Beech leaves rehearse whispers of shingle.
Spaced farms apart, cockerels are playing Queenie-I-Koko.
A far dog rasps sawing planks.
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